Android (View and Jetpack Compose) quick start

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Target Platforms

This quick start guide shows you how to get Heap set up in an Android application that uses a mixture of the Android View framework and Jetpack Compose for creating the user interface.

After completing the setup process, you'll be able to:

• Take full advantage of the Heap API to track custom events and manage user identity.
• Automatically capture a wide variety of user interactions in the View framework portions of your application with no additional code required.

Note: Heap does not currently autocapture interactions in UI components built with Jetpack Compose.

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If you're using Heap Classic and thinking of switching to our latest offerings, check out the full breakdown of the differences between our SDKs here.

Before you begin

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The below guide assumes a standard <project>/<app> configuration and use of the most up-to-date Gradle syntax. If you're using the legacy Gradle syntax in your project, visit our custom configuration guide here.

All Heap Android SDKs are distributed via Maven Central. To make sure your application can access the required artifacts, you will need to add Maven Central as a repository for both Gradle plugins and dependencies.

In your project-level settings.gradle file, add a reference to Maven Central:

pluginManagement {  
  repositories {  
    ...  
    mavenCentral()  
  }  
}

dependencyResolutionManagement {  
  repositories {  
    ...  
    mavenCentral()  
  }  
}

pluginManagement {  
  repositories {  
    ...  
    mavenCentral()  
  }  
}

dependencyResolutionManagement {  
  repositories {  
    ...  
    mavenCentral()  
  }  
}

Add the Heap SDK to your application

1. In your app-level build.gradle file, add the dependency for the Heap Android Core SDK and the Heap Android View Autocapture SDK.

dependencies {  
  implementation 'io.heap.core:heap-android-core:0.5.+'  
  implementation 'io.heap.autocapture:heap-autocapture-view:0.5.+'  
}

dependencies {  
  implementation("io.heap.core:heap-android-core:0.3.+")
  implementation("io.heap.autocapture:heap-autocapture-view:0.3.+")
}

2. Also in your app-level build.gradle file, add the Heap Gradle Plugin. This must come after the Android application plugin.

plugins {  
    id 'com.android.application'  
    ...  
    id 'io.heap.gradle' version '0.3.+'  
}

plugins {  
    id("com.android.application")
    ...  
    id("io.heap.gradle") version "0.3.+"
}

3. Once the dependencies and the plugin have been added, sync Gradle and rebuild your application.

4. To enable Heap and start automatically tracking supported user interactions, register the autocapture SDK and call startRecording. This can go anywhere in your app, but we recommend doing this in the onCreate method of your app’s Application object to make sure tracking starts before the first UI element is shown.

import io.heap.autocapture.ViewAutocaptureSDK  
import io.heap.core.Heap

class MyApplication : Application() {  
  override fun onCreate() {  
    super.onCreate()  
    // Replace YOUR_ENVIRONMENT_ID with the ID of the Heap environment you wish to send data to.  
    Heap.startRecording(this, "YOUR_ENVIRONMENT_ID")  
    // Call ViewAutocaptureSDK.register() to enable autocapture for supported UI elements.  
    ViewAutocaptureSDK.register()  
  }  
}

import io.heap.autocapture.ViewAutocaptureSDK;
import io.heap.core.Heap;

public class MyApplication extends Application {  
  @Override
	public void onCreate() {  
    super.onCreate();
    // Replace YOUR_ENVIRONMENT_ID with the ID of the Heap environment you wish to send data to.  
    Heap.startRecording(this, "YOUR_ENVIRONMENT_ID");  
    // Call ViewAutocaptureSDK.register() to enable autocapture for supported UI elements.  
    ViewAutocaptureSDK.register();  
  }  
}

Once recording has started, you’re able to take full advantage of Heap’s API to identify users, track custom events, and more. Heap will also automatically start tracking a wide range of user interactions in the View framework portions of your app, as well as tracking activity and fragment visibility changes and app version changes without any additional code.

What next?

Instrument your UI elements built with Jetpack Compose to make sure you have a complete dataset of all user interactions. Learn all about Heap’s custom event tracking APIs here.

To find out how to take full advantage of the Heap API to enhance your data capture, check out our mobile tracking guides here.

If you want to learn how Heap auto-captures data in the Android View framework, and how you can enhance your autocapture experience with minor updates to your code, check out our autocapture guide here.